Hey everyone, it's time for my bi-annual update. :) Or at least it seems that's about how much I get on here. We've been keeping busy with life, the universe and everything, and having lots of fun. Dad was up all of June and I made him work his fingers to the bone for his room and food. We gardened, mowed, weeded, castrated pigs (I opted out of having him butcher chickens, lucky him), raked and shoveled sand, dealt with flooding, and a lot more. Oh, and he had to keep my house clean and the kids entertained on top of that. :) Boy was my life great! Poor dad. We went to a Milton-Freewater church reunion (I know, who's ever heard of that?) which was a lot of fun, and one of the ladies had this picture posted. How cool do we look?
We stayed in Tri-Cities for 4 days last week so Mickey could get his eyes fixed (Yay, no glasses in Iraq! Lucky dog, I'm so jealous!) While we were there we finally got up the courage to get Kareli's hair cut into bangs. Now we love it! We took her to a place called Monkey Dooz, where they can sit in cars and watch a cartoon while they get their hair cut. Kareli (and Kayin) really enjoyed it.
How cute is that?? She loves not having her hair in her face all the time.
Kayin graduated Preschool! He wasn't happy that I made him stand up front for a picture:
... but he was thrilled when he got to sit on Mrs. Brooks' lap and get his certificate. :) She's such a wonderful teacher; he adores her.
We had a ton of rain the whole time Dad was here and the whole back lot completely flooded. There were waterfalls and rivers everywhere, and it went up to our knees on level ground when we waded across. The pond above us flooded into ours, and ours flooded into the neighbor's below us. It was a nice cascading effect. :) Good thing they built the stuggas up so high.
This used to be the road, and all the water on the right is where the beach used to be. And the Strommers had just put down $100 worth of sand to get ready for a wedding reception. It took nearly $400 more to get it back into shape when the water went down. All the sand got washed away. Luckily it was perfect just in time for the wedding.
We made the most of the high water and went out boating nearly every day, once we weren't at risk of being washed into the neighbor's yard.
Troy surprised me with the announcement that I was now the lucky owner of two little pigs, as long as I went to get them and took care of them. :) Onery booger! But they are very cute, and the Strommer's call them Crispy and Crunchy. Dad castrated them while I held them, which was traumatic for everyone (Poor Kareli cried and cried every time the pigs squealed, even while we were just chasing them). They recovered quickly though and are growing fast. And it's much easier taking care of them when we don't have to walk five miles to do it! Yay for big backyards!
The kids throughly enjoyed dressing Dad up. He looks so beautiful in makeup!
Kayin was very proud of teaching himself a new trick. Freaked me out the first time he flipped over, I thought he'd crack his head for sure!
He's also very good at delegating responsibility. I thought this was a pretty smart arrangement for him! Notice Jarek is tied up and pulling him, while he sits at a desk they somehow wedged into the sled. :) We had to laugh at that.
Kareli is my little dirt eater. She loves that stuff! Kayin likes to help out by dumping it on her head, which is how I found her in this picture. That was some nasty bathwater!
